Rising sea levels are already starting to be felt in the Pacific, and in Fiji this has forced villagers to leave their coastal homes for more stable areas further inland.
Two years ago the entire village of Vunidogoloa had to relocate two kilometres inland to escape the tides and flooding.
1 NEWS Pacific correspondent Barbara Dreaver visited the village of Vunidogoloa.
Speaking to 1 NEWS' Barbara Dreaver, villager Simione Botu said climate change had affected everything in their lives.
"Climate change is bad because it affects us. It affects the community."
Storm surges and high tides had increasingly swept through the village, making it impossible to live there.
In places the beach had even overtaken the remnants of some of the village's abandoned homes.
The village of Vunidogoloa has been relocated 2km inland, forcing residents to leave ancestral lands and family graves.
"We feel frightened because we don't know, maybe sometimes we are sleeping (at) midnight, maybe you will be washed away," Mr Botu's son Simione Botu Junior said.
Leaving behind a coastal settlement lived in for generations and the graves of their loved ones, the villagers had their way of life turned upside down.
Vunidogoloa is one of four villages that have been relocated due to the effects of climate change.
Fiji is the first small island nation to chair UN climate change negotiations this week.
In total, 68 villages have been identified as being at risk from the effects of climate change and will likely need to be moved.
Fiji will address the effects climate change is having on the Pacific island as it take the lead role in the UN Climate Change conference in Bonn this week.
This is the first time a small island nation has taken such a role.
Read more here: Opinion: Fiji is stepping up where New Zealand has failed Kiribati on climate change
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